Fill and Sign the Retainer Agreement PDF Download Form

(LAW FIRM) ATTORNEYS AT LAW Fee Retainer Agreement This Agreement is by and between (Law Firm) , Attorneys at Law and (Client) . TYPE OF LEGAL SERVICE : (Law Firm) , Attorneys at Law will provide representation in the following matter(s): ____ Review domestic relations matter ____ Represent Client in domestic relations matter ____ Represent Client on appeal ____ Post Decree Matter ATTORNEY'S FEES : Attorney's fees will be charged as follows: ____ will bill at the rate of $ ____ per hour. ____ will provide representation at $ ____ per hour. PARALEGAL FEES : Senior paralegal fees will be charged at the rate of $ ____ per hour. Junior paralegal fees will be charged at the rate of $ ____ per hour. LAW CLERK : All law clerks who are assigned to the file will bill at the rate of $ ____ per hour. OTHER STAFF CHARGES : With the exception of attorneys and paralegals and word processors, ____ does not additionally charge for the services of its secretaries, receptionist, bookkeeper or other staff persons who work with the firm on a regular or periodic basis. Word processors who are retained for financial data entry and reconciliation projects on your case will be billed at the rate of $ ____ per hour. ADJUSTMENT TO THE HOURLY RATES : The hourly rates quoted for attorneys, paralegals and law clerks are subject to adjustment and may be increased from time to time. The client will be notified of all such increases prior to the increase being charged to the client. BILLING INCREMENTS : Your case will be billed to the nearest 1/10th of an hour. This consists of 6 minutes. All non-emergency calls made to the residence of an attorney or other staff member will be billed to the file at the rate of .5 hours, which is the equivalent of 30 minutes. - 1 - RETAINER : The initial retainer shall be $ ____ . This initial retainer is a down payment on the fees to be charged by the attorneys and any other appropriate staff members who work on your case, costs that are incurred on your behalf in the office and costs that are incurred on your behalf that require the services of individuals or entities located outside of the offices of (Law Firm) . Your initial retainer shall be divided into two component parts. A portion of your retainer shall be for operating expenses, and a portion of your retainer shall be for costs. 1. Operating Expenses : $ ____ of your retainer shall be placed into our operating account for immediate use. $ ____ shall be placed into a trust account for future use. (Interest on the trust account is taken by the State of ____ and is not refundable to the client.) 2. Non-refundable Fees : A minimum charge of $ ____ shall be non-refundable in the event that services are terminated early in our representation on your case, e.g., you reconcile with your spouse. This is to cover administrative costs of opening and closing your file. 3. Refunds : The initial retainer less $ ____ or accrued fees and costs, whichever is greater, shall be refunded to the client at such time as (Law Firm) is released from representation as the attorneys of record. MONTHLY STATEMENTS : The client will receive a monthly statement of attorneys' fees, disbursed costs and trust balances. The statement will describe the type of work that was performed on the case, the amount of time incurred for the activity, and the dollar value of the time incurred on the file. Costs and disbursements will additionally be identified and the amount of the cost will be recorded. Disbursements from the trust accounts will be noted as will all balances remaining in trust accounts. Late charges will also be noted on bills. (Law Firm) will endeavor to provide monthly bills to the clients on or before the ____ day of each and every month. Charges will be recorded for the preceding monthly only. Payments that are received will be recorded against the monthly bill in which they were received. The billing cycle commences on the first day of each month and continues through the last day of that month. PAYMENT OF FEES : The client is expected to pay his or her bill in full prior to the expiration of the thirty- (30) day period from the closing date on the statement. To the extent the bill is not paid in full, there will be late charges imposed on the outstanding balance. This is more fully described hereinafter in the section entitled Late Charge . At the end of a case, any outstanding balances must be paid within thirty- (30) days after the client receives a copy of the final order or judgment and decree. If payment of the fees is not made in full within that period of time, (Law Firm) may elect to pursue collection of the fees through litigation or any other means of collection available to them. LATE CHARGES : If a statement has not been paid in full prior to the expiration of the thirty (30) day period from the closing date on the statement, a LATE CHARGE of one and one-half percent (1.5%) per month (18%) per annum will be imposed on the unpaid outstanding balance. See "Your Billing Rights" and "Advice of Late Charge" which are attached to this agreement. AWARDS OF ATTORNEY'S FEES AND COSTS : An award of attorney's fees and costs by the court to the client will not affect this agreement. The client is responsible for payment of all fees and costs that accrue pursuant to the bills submitted to the client. An award by the court is an obligation of an opposing party to the client not to (Law Firm) . (Law Firm) is under no obligation to incur costs to collect fees that are awarded by the court. (Law Firm) will assist the client, if possible, to collect the fees that are awarded by the court. Any portion of an award made by the court which is paid directly to (Law Firm) will be credited to the client's account. APPEALS AND POST-DECREE RELIEF : This agreement does not include appeals and relief that is sought from the judgment and decree of dissolution, unless specifically stated. Professional services rendered after the judgment and decree of dissolution is entered are charged in the same manner provided by this agreement. A separate retainer fee may be required for enforcement of the judgment and decree of dissolution. A separate retainer shall be required for any appeal that the client seeks to obtain with the services of (Law Firm) . FEE DISPUTES : (Law Firm) will cooperate to resolve any fee disputes with the client. The client has the right to submit to (Law Firm) , within sixty (60) days of the date of any disputed statement, a written notice to the firm which states what is disputed and requests that (Law Firm) review the billing statement. See "YOUR BILLING RIGHTS" attached hereto. Such notices regarding disputes must be sent to (Law Firm) , Attorneys at Law, Attention: Bookkeeper, (Address) , (City, St Zip) . Any unresolved fee disputes may be submitted to the Arbitration Committee of the State Bar of (State) . To the extent that such disputes are submitted for arbitration, the arbitration will be binding on both the client and (Law Firm) . HIRING NEW COUNSEL, WITHDRAWAL OF SERVICES BY (LAW FIRM) : In the event that (Law Firm) withdraws from the case as attorneys of record, or the client dismisses the services of (Law Firm) and/or retains the services of other counsel in place of (Law Firm) , the client shall pay (Law Firm) $ ____ per page for all copies of the file that the client and/or his/her new counsel requests. Said sum shall be billed to the client and shall be paid by the client together with any and all other fees and costs that remain unpaid at the time that (Law Firm) ceases to represent the client. COMMENCEMENT OF REPRESENTATION : Representation will not commence until (Law Firm) receives a signed copy of this Agreement and the initial fee retainer and cost deposit from the client. This Agreement is void unless (Law Firm) receives a signed Agreement from the client within thirty (30) days of the date of (Law Firm) signature on this Agreement. CLIENT'S SIGNATURE : Clients should not sign this agreement until the client has read, understands and voluntarily accepts each and every term of this Agreement. If you have any questions about this Agreement, you can discuss them with the attorney on your case. There will be no charge to you for such discussions. Additionally, you may have another attorney review this Agreement. The client's signature on this Agreement acknowledges that the client has read the Agreement, understands the Agreement and voluntarily accepts each and every term of the Agreement. The client's signature also acknowledges receipt of a copy of this Agreement. PRIMARY ATTORNEY : The attorney who is primarily responsible for your case will be ______ . (Law Firm) , ATTORNEYS AT LAW ________________ Date: ___________________ For the Firm _______________________________ Date: ___________________ Client (LAW FIRM) , ATTORNEYS AT LAW YOUR BILLING RIGHTS - KEEP THIS NOTICE FOR FUTURE USE This notice contains important information about your rights and our responsibilities under the Fair Credit Billing Act. NOTIFY US IN CASE OF ERRORS OR QUESTIONS ABOUT YOUR BILL If you think your bill is wrong, or if you need more information about a transaction on your bill, write us at the address listed on your bill. Write to us as soon as possible. We must hear from you no later than sixty (60) days after we sent you the first bill on which the error or problem appeared. You can telephone us, but doing so will not preserve your rights. In your letter, give us the following information: - Your name and account number. - The dollar amount of the suspected error. - Describe the error and explain, if you can, why you believe there is an error. If you need more information, describe the item you are not sure about. YOUR RIGHTS AND OUR RESPONSIBILITIES AFTER WE RECEIVE YOUR WRITTEN NOTICE We must acknowledge your letter within thirty (30) days unless we have corrected the error by then. Within ninety (90) days, we must either correct the error or explain why we believe the bill was correct. After we receive your letter, we cannot try to collect any amount you question, or report you as delinquent. We can continue to bill you for the amount you question, including finance charges, and we can apply any unpaid amount from the balance of the deposit. You do not have to pay any questioned amount while we are investigating, but you are still obligated to pay the parts of your bill that are not in question. If we find that we made a mistake on your bill, you will not have to pay any finance charges related to any questioned amount. If we did not make a mistake, you will have to pay the questioned amount and you may have to pay finance charges. In either case, we will send you a statement of the amount you owe and the date that it is due. If you fail to pay the amount that we think you owe, we may report you as delinquent. However, if our explanation does not satisfy you and you write to us within ten (10) days telling us that you still refuse to pay, we must tell anyone we report you to that you have a question about your bill. And, we must tell you the name of anyone we reported you to. We must tell anyone we report you to that the matter has been settled between us when it finally is. - 5 - If we don't follow these rules, we can't collect the first fifty dollars ($50.00) of the questioned amount, even if your bill was correct. - 6 - (LAW FIRM) , ATTORNEYS AT LAW ADVICE OF LATE CHARGE The Fee Retainer Agreement provides that if the client does not pay any outstanding balance within thirty (30) days of receiving the statement, a LATE CHARGE of 1.5% per month will be imposed on the unpaid outstanding balance. This is an ANNUAL PERCENTAGE RATE of 18% which is an effective rate of 19.56%. The LATE CHARGE will begin to accrue thirty (30) days after the date of your statement. If paid in full prior to the expiration of the thirty (30) day period, no LATE CHARGE will be imposed. If a LATE CHARGE is imposed, the client will receive a statement as of the end of each billing period setting forth separately (a) the balance of the account at the beginning of the billing cycle ("Balance from last statement"); (b) payments thereon ("Current payments") and credits thereto ("Adjustments") during such billing cycle; (c) the balance on which the LATE CHARGE) is computed which is the unpaid balance (balance subject to LATE CHARGE) which is the sum of the amounts due in the aging column (i.e. thirty (30) days, sixty (60) days, etc.); (d) "Late Charge"; (e) charges for legal services incurred during the billing cycle ("Current Fees"); (f) costs incurred during the billing cycle ("Current Costs"); (g) the balance due on the billing date ("Total Due"); (h) the monthly periodic rate of LATE CHARGES by which the New Balance must be paid to avoid additional LATE CHARGES; and (k) the address to be used for notice of any billing errors. The minimum payment required to be made will be as set forth within the Fee Retainer Agreement. Current payments shall be applied first to the payment of outstanding costs, then LATE CHARGES, and then to the fees for legal services. (LAW FIRM) reserves the right to amend or modify the terms and conditions set forth herein upon notice to client in accordance with applicable law. - 7 -